"
My first impulse was to step on deck in the usual way, but the earnest
entreaties of my wife awoke me to a danger that should be investigated
with caution. Arming myself, therefore, with a stout carbine repeater,
with eight ball cartridges in the magazine, I stepped on deck abaft
instead of forward, where evidently I had been expected. I stood rubbing
my eyes for a moment, inuring them to the intense darkness, when a
coarse voice roared down the forward companionway to me to come on deck.
"Why don't ye come on deck like a man, and order yer men forid?" was the
salute that I got, and was the first that I heard with my own ears, and
it was enough. To tell the whole story in a word, I knew that I had to
face a mutiny.
I could do no less than say: "Go forward there!"
"Yer there, are ye?" said the spokesman, as with an oath, he bounded
toward me, cursing as he came.
Again I ordered him forward, saying, "I am armed,--if you come here I
will shoot!" But I forbore to do so instantly, thinking to club him to
the deck instead, for my carbine was a heavy one. I dealt him a blow as
he came near, sufficient I thought, to fell an ox; but it had,
apparently, no effect, and instantly he was inside of my guard.
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